Gardeners' Holidays 2022: First Sowing

We're a little behind with our work in the garden this year. Between errands, visits to out-of-state friends, and trying to prepare our tax return and a new RPG campaign, our weekends have been so packed that we never got around to preparing the beds for planting. So when the first day of spring rolled around — the traditional day for sowing our snap peas, the first crop of the year — it found the garden still covered in weeds.

Thus, it's quite easy to see in this picture where the peas went in: It's the one place where the weeds aren't. Brian cleared them out just in that one little patch, and I poked in the peas, gave them a good watering (with the watering can, since the outdoor water is still off and the rain barrel is still in storage) and covered them with the row protectors Brian constructed. They're not much of a barrier, but we hope they'll at least deter squirrels from digging up the peas.

Fortunately, not all the plants coming up in the beds are weeds. While planting the peas, I discovered a couple of small, twisty leeks in the next bed over. Apparently they never got harvested last fall, and they managed to overwinter successfully. So even if our first seeds just went into the ground, we already have one crop that we could harvest right now in a pinch.

And there are more edibles waiting in the wings in other parts of the yard. In the asparagus patch, the first few spears are just starting to poke their little heads up. In the rhubarb patch, all four plants are visible (though some more so than others), a harbinger of pies and crisps to come. And beside the shed, the garlic we planted last fall is sending up narrow green shoots, which should be ready to harvest in May or June.

In short, spring is doing its thing, whether we are ready for it or not. So if we want to get our next set of crops (lettuce, leeks, scallions, and arugula) in as scheduled on April 10, we are going to need to make time in the next week or two for some serious garden work. Our to-do list includes:

• Weeding all the beds, as well as the areas under the fruit trees and bushes
  
• Excavating compost from the bin to spread on the beds
  
• Testing the bagged compost that we bought last weekend to supplement what our little bin can produce
• Buying some mulch to put down on our flowerbed, shrubs, and trees
• Making room for the mulch in the shed by getting the rain barrel and patio furniture out of there
• Making room on the patio for the furniture by burning the branches we cut off the rosebush last month
• Setting up the rain barrel
• Extending our garden fence in the hope of keeping out deer (more on this later once we figure out what the sam hill we're doing)
• And, whenever it arrives, planting the new honeyberry bush we ordered to replace the dead one we failed to replace last year
  

So we certainly have no shortage of outdoor jobs to keep us busy. To get it all done, we'll either have to work on it in the afternoons and evenings over the next couple of weeks or block out a whole weekend to devote almost entirely to the garden. Because food (with the exception of plums, when we're lucky) doesn't just grow on trees.